The Hollywood Bowl will transform into a dive-in theater ‘Under the Sea’ with its ‘The Little Mermaid’ live-to-film concert event

The two-night special event, held in Los Angeles on Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18, will feature celebrity singers including Lea Michele, Harvey Fierstein, Cheech Marin, Peter Gallagher, Ken Page and more.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Disney animated classic “The Little Mermaid,” The Hollywood Bowl is hosting an immersive live-to-film concert event Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. A full orchestra and a cast of famous actors and singers will perform Alan Menken’s Oscar- and Grammy Award-winning score live while the movie plays on several large screens under the stars.

While the masses attending these shows may already have these songs ingrained enough in their psyches to belt out each and every word along to the film, producers decided to enlist an all-star cast including “Glee” actress and Broadway regular Lea Michele as Ariel; actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein as Ursula; comedian, actor and Mezcal connoisseur Cheeh Marin as Chef Louis; actor, musician and writer Peter Gallagher as King Triton; pop singer Leo Gallo as Prince Eric; and voiceover artist and Broadway star Ken Page will voice the lovable crab, Sebastian.

“I was actually one of the contenders for the original casting of the voice and now I finally get to do it 30 years later,” Page said during a recent phone interview, noting that he’s been practicing the songs for the upcoming show at his hometown theater in Missouri. “These songs are sort of in my DNA somewhere. When you’re doing them to film you can’t just do what you want, you have to stay within certain parameters so it matches the film and to be able to get that into my bones, I’m enjoying doing it. I have the CD in my car, I have the orchestration without the vocals, I have the orchestration with the vocals. I’m doing all of that.”

Actor Ken Page, better known as the voice of Oogie Boogie from “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” will voice the role of Sebastian the crab during Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Live-to-Film Concert event at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. (Photo by Vince Bucci, Getty Images)

An example of the projection mapping that will be used on the shell of the Hollywood Bowl stage during Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Live-to-Concert event in Los Angeles on Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. (Image courtesy of the Hollywood Bowl)

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Actress and singer Lea Michele will provide the signing voice of Ariel during Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Live-to-Film Concert event at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. (Photo by Jordan Strauss, Associated Press)

An example of the projection mapping that will be used on the shell of the Hollywood Bowl stage during Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Live-to-Concert event in Los Angeles on Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. (Image courtesy of the Hollywood Bowl)

An example of the projection mapping that will be used on the shell of the Hollywood Bowl stage during Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Live-to-Concert event in Los Angeles on Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. (Image courtesy of the Hollywood Bowl)

Comedian and actor Cheech Marin will take on the role of Chef Louis during Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Live-to-Film Concert event at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. (File photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

An example of the projection mapping that will be used on the shell of the Hollywood Bowl stage during Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” Live-to-Concert event in Los Angeles on Friday, May 17 and Saturday, May 18. (Image courtesy of the Hollywood Bowl)

Each guest star will come out to sing memorable songs from the film including “Under the Sea,” “Kiss the Girl,” “Poor Unfortunate Souls” and “Part of Your World.” As a bonus, they’ve also added in songs from the Broadway version of “The Little Mermaid” including the song “If Only,” which is a quartet with Ariel, King Triton, Prince Eric and Sebastian.

As Kraft explained in a recent phone interview, these events are “… not quite a concert, they’re not quite a film screening and they’re not quite a stage show … they’re more like a theme park experience.” He’s an avid lover of all things Disney and after going to the theme parks he said be began to view the Hollywood Bowl clamshell and its proscenium much like Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at the end of Main Street inside Disneyland.

“The way I see it, the Hollywood Bowl is as iconic to Hollywood as the castle is to a Disney theme park,” he explained. “Disney does these brilliant castle projection shows that celebrate Disney and they do it on top of the greatest surface, the castle, and so we figured you’d celebrate movies at the Hollywood Bowl the same way, with the shell of the bowl as part of the show.”

On top of the music, the film screening and the elaborate projected scenery there will also be aquatically-themed previews of coming attractions, throw-back animated snack commercials and the 1938 Silly Symphony cartoon “Merbabies,” featuring the world premiere of a live original score composed by 17-year-old pianist Emily Bear. “The Little Mermaid” themed costumes are highly encouraged since there is a costume contest and plenty of opportunities for fans to experience unique photo ops all around the venue.

Kraft and Page said they both can’t wait to see what Fierstein does with Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” adding that in many ways they both felt he was born for the role. Kraft said he was also tossing back and forth ideas like “a tennis match on Red Bull” with his team for Chef Louis’ “Les Poissons.”

“We like to tell a good story,” he said. “So what is Chef Louis like 30 years later? We almost went to this fever dream level of having Cheech Marin, who I don’t believe anyone else would think of as a French Chef, do this song with these projections and I realized it was a song about massacring fish. So the direction of the projections was like OK, we’re depicting a serial seafood killer’s mindset and doing it in bold and crazy cartoon colors … what does that look like? I feel like there’s never ‘too much’ going on. I think my ADD is the hallmark of these shows because I get restless very quickly so I realize I didn’t actually throw in the kitchen sink into the Chef Louis song, but it’s not too late, I can still add one.”

Page, who also famously voices Oogie Boogie from “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” said this will be his fifth time performing on the Hollywood Bowl stage and that it never gets old. He’s looking forward to having the audience sing along to the songs as well.

“I think it’s a good thing that without necessarily having to promote it that way, people will be signing along and I think that makes it even more immersive for the audience and they feel even closer to what’s happening on stage,” he said. “(“The Little Mermaid” has) been around for 30 years so that’s at least two, maybe three generations that have seen it and how can you beat that kind of audience enthusiasm?”

Kelli Skye Fadroski lives for entertainment. She’s worked at The Orange County Register since 2006 and has covered all things music, stand-up comedy, horror and more. When she’s not out reviewing a concert or interviewing some random famous person, she’s catching up on episodes of 'The Walking Dead,' somewhere sampling craft beer, enjoying Taco Tuesday or yelling at the contestants through the TV on 'Celebrity Name Game' for not knowing basic pop culture trivia. She’s also a diehard Detroit Lions fan.

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